Re: [Enigma-devel] Reordering the level packs

[Ronald Lamprecht]

Hi,

Andreas Lochmann wrote:
> Raoul (derloi-at-bluewin.ch) and I will soon
> start the reordering process, and hope to
> complete it till the end of January.

This schedule is compatible with my xml additions. The reordering should
not interfere with my C++ engine changes in principle. Only the few
points commented below should be considered.

The following upcomming xml feature additions may be important to know:
- besides classical levelpacks I will add pure indices to levels
  contained in different levelpacks. The history levelpack or better
  levelindex is an example of a dynamic generated index.
- levelpacks and indices can be stored local or be loaded from the
  internet - ftp and http protocol are currently supported for
  xml-levels
- indices will change from the current txt format to xml
- lua levels will change from pure lua code to xml format with level
  metadata and embedded lua code.

> We want to:
>  => keep the current naming of level packs

How about new names for the new level packs and additional pure indices
with the old names that are compatible to the old level packs (for
people who are used to the old order and want to finish these packs)?

>  => move original Oxyd/Esprit-levels that sneaked into the
>         Enigma-packs back into Oxyds-pack
>  => maybe split the Oxyds-pack into Esprit/Oxyd Extra/Per.Oxyd...
>         (depending on total number)
>  => add new levels from magheut.net and other sources
>         if they appear appropriate to us
>          -> we'll inform you about these
>  => complete the rating for Enigma-pack-levels.
>  => remove momentarily broken levels
>         -> try to contact the authors
>         -> try to repair the levels, if possible
>         -> put the rest into Experimental-pack
>  => move those levels, that qualify for future two-player-support
>         into an own, new level-pack
>  => Each of the Enigma-packs should have up to 100 levels
>  => Exactly each 10th level in the Enigma-packs will be meditation,
>         except for the 100th, which will be a kind of "master level"
>  => Ordering with respect to
>         -> difficulty
>         -> regular occurence of new items
>  => Some (the minority) of the "decades" between two meditation-
>         levels will feature a common theme of design or gameplay,
>         to give some change and orientation to the player
>  => reorder the levels physically:
>         -> exactly one subdirectory for each level pack, including
>               the index_levelpack.txt

subdirectories levels/packs/levelpackname/ and levels/indices/

>         -> one directory "levels/lib/" for libraries like ant.lua,
>               we will change the level-files according to this and
>               contact the BlackBallEd-group for this change

Please use the subvision repository trunk levels. Many of them have been
corrected concerning line termination.

>         -> keeping a copy of ant.lua in "levels/" for backward-
>               compatibility with user-made-levels.
>         -> on long terms, index.lua should be the only file
>               remaining in "levels/"
>  => rename the levels with name "level1a.lua" etc. to match
>         the current convention "author-number.lua"

Please add a comment in the levelfile which references the "old"
levelname. We may add alternative names in the xml level metadata.

> Are these points okay?
> If you have any comments, additions, wishes or offerings,
> please contact us *within the next week*, as we want to start
> the reordering-process soon. Thank you.

Ronald